Is there a magic cutoff period when offspring become accountable for their own actions? Is there a wonderful moment when parents can become spectators (旁观者) in the lives of their children and shrug, "It' s their life," and feel nothing?

    When I was in my twenties, I stood in a hospital corridor waiting for doctors to put a few stitches in my son's head. I was asked, "When do you stop worrying?" A nurse said, "When they get out of the accident stage." My mother just smiled faintly and said nothing.

    When I was in my thirties, I sat on a little chair in a classroom and heard how one of my children talked incessantly, disrupted (打断) the class, and was headed for a career making license plates. As if to read my mind, a teacher said, "Don't worry. They all go through this stage, and then you can sit back, relax, and enjoy them." My mother listened and said nothing.

    When I was in my forties, I spent a lifetime waiting for the phone to ring and the cars to come home, the front door to open.

    My friends said that when my kids got married I could stop worrying and lead my own life. I wanted to believe that, but I was haunted by my mother' s wan ( 淡淡的 ) smile and her occasional words, "You look pale. Are you all right? Call me the minute you get home."

    Can it be that parents are sentenced to a lifetime of worry? Is concern for one another handed down like a torch to blaze the trail of human frailties and the fears of the unknown? Is concern a curse? Or is it a virtue that elevates us to the highest form of life?

    One of my children became quite irritable recently, saying to me, "Where were you? I've been calling for three days, and no one answered. I was worried!!!"

    I smiled a wan smile.

    The weather is very important to farmers. The calendar might say “August”， but the weather's more like October. For some farmers the cool weather is a good thing. For others, it's a cause for concern.

    At Apple Hill, the cooler weather was giving the Boeger Winery a chance to concentrate on bottling instead of picking. “Things were really maturing, it has just been a welcome relief to have more time to prepare.” said Greg Boeger of Boeger Winery.

    But down in the Delta, the earlier hot weather has them two weeks ahead of schedule. Their harvest actually started on Tuesday, and this cooling trend is a worry. There have been no problems yet, but for each of the last two years heavy rain right after Labor Day was a problem, one that Don Pylman would not like to see repeated.

    “If it doesn't start raining, we're in good shape，” said Pylman. “If the sun comes out and clears up we can get right back to work, but if we do get rain, the rots will start.”

    The kind of grape makes a difference as well. Thin­skinned grapes like the chardonnay variety are much more sensitive to rain than some of the others. They're also more difficult to dry off.

    The purpose of a map is to express graphically the relations of points and features on the earth's surface to each other. These are determined by distance and direction. In early times distance was often expressed in units of time, for example “so many hours' march” or “a day's journey by river”, but such measurements gave more information about the relative ease of crossing the local terrain than they did about actual distance. The other element is direction, but for the ordinary traveller, whose main concern was “Where do I go from here?” and “How far away is it?”, the accurate representation of direction was not of primary importance. Partly for this reason, written itineraries (行程) for a long time rivaled maps. Even today, certain types of maps, for example, those showing railway systems, may make little attempt to show true directions. Similarly, obvious landmarks along a route were at first indicated by signs, realistic or conventional (惯常的), and varied in size to indicate their importance. Clearly the conventions employed varied with the purpose of the map, and also from place to place, so that in studying early maps the first essential is to understand the particular convention employed.

    The history of cartography (制图) is largely that of the increase in the accuracy with which these elements of distance and direction are determined and in the comprehensiveness of the map content. In this development, cartography has called in other sciences to its aid. For example, instead of determining direction by observing the position of a shadow at midday, or of a constellation (星座) in the night sky, or even of a steady wind, use was made of terrestrial magnetism (地磁学) through the magnetic compass, and instruments were evolved which enabled horizontal angles to be calculated with great accuracy.

    The application of astronomical concepts, and the extension of the knowledge of the world through exploration, encouraged attempts to map the known world. Then astronomers discovered that the earth is not a perfect sphere, but is flattened slightly at the poles, which introduced further refinements into the mapping of large areas. Meanwhile, the demands being made of the map maker were shifting significantly. The traveller or the merchant ceased to be the sole user of maps. The soldier, especially after the introduction of artillery, and the problems of range, field of fire, and dead ground which it raised, demanded an accurate representation of the surface features, in place of the earlier conventional or pictorial delineation (描绘), and a solution in any degree satisfactory was not reached until the contour (等高线) was invented.

    Honey from the African forest is not only a kind of natural sugar, it is also delicious. Most people, and many animals, like eating it. However, the only way for them to get that honey is to find a wild bees' nest and take the honey from it. Often, these nests are high up in trees, and it is difficult to find them. In parts of Africa, though, people and animals looking for honey have a strange and unexpected helper-a little bird called a honey guide.

    The honey guide does not actually like honey, but it does like the wax in the beehives(蜂房). The little bird cannot reach this wax, which is deep inside the bees' nest. So, when it finds a suitable nest, it looks for someone to help it. The honey guide gives a loud cry that attracts the attention of both passing animals and people. Once it has their attention, it flies through the forest, waiting from time to time for the curious animal or person as it leads them to the nest. When they finally arrive at the nest, the follower reaches in to get at the delicious honey as the bird patiently waits and watches. Some of the honey, and the wax(蜂蜡), always falls to the ground, and this is when the honey guide takes its share.

    Scientists do not know why the honey guide likes eating the wax, but it is very distance away. They will quickly arrive whenever a beekeeper is taking honey from his beehives, and will even enter churches when beeswax candles are being lit.

    Finding a friend doesn't seem like a difficult job. However, bad friends are easier to find than good friends these days. If you're sitting there and wondering if you have a bad friend, let me define it for you.

    A bad friend is someone whose jealousies and insecurities outweigh their love for someone. They might want to be a good friend but they're too messed up in their own head to ever actually do it. They wonder if their friends are going out without them or if they're being forgotten and left behind. People who are violently insecure don't have what it takes to be the quality of a friend.

    Bad friends are narcissistic(自恋的). They look for any opportunity to bring the conversation back to them. Worse, they might not even be aware that they're doing it. In their mind, they might think they are the best friend ever, which is truly frightening.

    Bad friends are quick-change. They're by your side when you're fun and you have something to give them but as soon as you're going through a difficult time, they will become indifferent quickly. They won't bring you cold medicine. They won't give you a ride to the doctor, everything they do is self-serving.

    If you find a friend who has these same characteristics, send them to your bad friend list immediately. Your friends are supposed to be the solution to your problems, not the source.

    I believe your twenties are a time when you need positive and helpful friends. In such a time, friendships aren't easy to maintain like they once were in school. Now we actually have to put work into it, we have to make a conscious effort to keep the friendship going. You need to ask yourself, "Is this person worth it? Do they treat me like a fool or what?" if you have doubts, try to make them clear by considering the past experiences. Toxic(有毒的) friendships do nothing but drag you down. My point is that you have to take care of yourself and stop getting in touch with your bad friends. Only surround yourself with people who bring out the best qualities in you. It may sound cruel but it's true.

Tea is currently the world's most popular drink, only after water. However, there was a time when tea was known only to the Chinese. So, how did tea originate in China? And how did it get to conquer the world to the extent that people often describe something they really like as their "cup of tea"? 

While we know that tea drink started in China, its true origin remains something unknown. Legend has it that about 5, 000 years ago, Shennong came across tea when dried leaves blew into a pot of boiling water. Following his discovery, tea was used as medicine, included in meals and later offered as a refreshing drink to officials and noblemen. Eventually, it became a common drink enjoyed by all Chinese people. 

The love of tea inspired many people to write about it. Over the years, tea drinking became an important part of China's rich culture. The great poet Du Fu described his tea-drinking experience in poetic language. Lu Yu, a tea master, wrote The Classic of Tea, which remains the earliest and most famous detailed study on tea in the world. 

It is then not surprising that the beauty of tea was eventually spread to a wider world. Tang and Song Dynasties needed strong Tibetan horses, so the Tea Horse Road was born. Porters (脚夫) carrying back-breaking loads of tea bricks made their way through dangerous snow-covered mountain passes, to trade Sichuan and Yunnan tea for horses. Over time, the gift of tea was further delivered to Western Asia and Easten Africa. As early as the Tang Dynasty, Saicho, a Japanese monk came to study in China and took tea seeds and tea-making customs to Japan. Around the 1600s, tea was shipped to Europe from China by Portuguese and Dutch sea traders.